Selfish
by missxbaphne
Summary: Something in her broken, battered, and bleeding face made him selfish enough to love her with is whole heart. Carlisle finds Esme in the morgue.


Title: Selfish  
Author: baphne.  
Characters/Pairings: Carlisle/Esme  
Short summary:_ Something in her broken, battered, and bleeding face made him selfish enough to love her with is whole heart.  
_Disclaimer: So not SMeyer

--

"I'm sorry to ask you to do this, I know you must hate going in there!"

The taller, blond, man smiled at him. "No, I don't mind. Go ahead, you'll be late."

Dr. Frank Miller smiled at his fellow physician and hurried off; it was his anniversary and Dr. Brown had fallen ill, leaving him and Dr. Cullen to handle the night shift. Carlisle felt a wave of sympathy for the human, he had been talking about the dinner he had planned with his wife all afternoon. There was no way he would rob him of that very human joy.

With an un-needed sigh, Carlisle began to make his rounds, his and Frank's rounds, he corrected mentally. It really wasn't much a challenge for him, being a vampire not only gave him super speed but excellent patience.

At that thought he chuckled remembering his 'son', Edward's, outburst that very morning when Carlisle had said something about him being a bit broody. He had made a mental note not to bring that topic up again for a few decades.

He could see an emptiness in Edward's eyes that he wasn't even sure Edward knew was there. It bothered him more then he would ever dare think, and think was important as his 'son' could read minds.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Carlisle reached his first stop, the morgue. This is the room Frank was referring too; all of the Doctors in the hospital hated the morgue, that was to be expected - most humans had a very rational fear of death. This was another situation where being a member of the undead helped him out quite well.

He pushed open the door to make sure that all the bodies were in some semblance of order before moving on to the east wing of the building. Dr. Cullen had only planned to take a quick look around but he froze the minute his hand touched the door.

iWas that a heart beat?/i He couldn't be certain, it was so very faint, but he swore he heard it.

_Thump...thump._ Sure of it this time, Carlisle entered the morgue. He walked swiftly to the back right corner of the large room, careful to not disturb the other bodies. He reached the source of his noise in a matter of seconds.

The heart beat was slowing; he pulled back the thin white sheet to reveal a beautiful woman who had no business being in this dark hole.

Even though her body was covered in bruises and cuts, her face, even through the blood, exuded sadness. So much pain on such a beautiful face, it hurt him to look at her.

Wait, he had looked at her before, he knew her! He saw her almost a decade before when she was just a child. She had broken her leg and he had mended it - she had never even mentioned the pain in her leg as she spoke to him, her voice only catching slightly when he moved his hands swiftly around it.

She had looked at him in a way that no other person had ever looked at him before; not as a monster or as an incarnation of beauty - she looked at him like he was igood./i He could never describe the look even if he was given lifetimes, which he was; but that one look from that young girl had made him feel as close to whole as he had ever felt in his very long life, both alive and dead.

What had happened to her? Her beautiful face? Her bell like laugh? Those warm eyes that made him so sure that he could do anything in the whole world?

At that very moment Carlisle experience several new emotions at once.

Anger. He wanted to find the person responsible for her hurt and make him pay, and that urge made him shudder to the deepest part of his being - he had never been taken hold of by anger that strong.

Longing. He needed to see her smile. He needed it more than anything in the whole world, it surpassed the thirst gnawing in his throat ten fold. Holding her in his arms would make everything better, he just knew it - and that surprised him.

Hope. This emotion wasn't new to him, but it was the strongest it had ever been. Hope for the future coursed through him faster then blood ever had, faster than joy, happiness, warmth, anything.

He reached out a cold hand to touch her almost as cold face.

_She's almost gone._ He couldn't lose her, he didn't want to lose her, he bneeded/b her. That though shook him to the core.

When he changed Edward he was being begged, when he was changed he was begging for it to end. Now, he was begging himself for the strength to save her. To save this beautiful creature for a completely selfish reason.

Something in her broken, battered, and bleeding face made him selfish enough to love her with is whole heart and he couldn't let the world suffer from not seeing her bright smile again.

_Thump...thump_.

He pressed his icy lips to her forehead before lowering his venomous teeth to her tender neck.


End file.
